Smartsheet Forward Q1 2024: Making work smoother, more intuitive, and fun

Hey there, Smartsheet community!

Welcome to 2024! We're kicking off this year with some exciting updates to Smartsheet that we think you're going to love. Our team's been hard at work developing new features and enhancements to make your experience smoother, more intuitive, and a lot more fun.

Resource Management: Just got a whole lot easier

Do you ever find yourself juggling multiple projects, unsure about who's ready for more tasks, who's handling what, or if your team members are stretched too thin? We aim to make that a thing of the past. By the end of April 2024, organizations on Smartsheet Business or Enterprise Plans will gain access to two new workload tracking features within their sheets, significantly enhancing team support and project execution.

The first new feature is the Workload Heatmap. It provides a clear and immediate view into the availability of your team members, shifting task assignment from guesswork to a data-driven strategy.

The second key feature, the Workload Schedule, gives you a comprehensive full-screen view of all team tasks and timelines. It simplifies the process of task reassignment and timing adjustments, while also providing visibility into the projects others are working on. This level of insight is not just vital for effectively managing project timelines; it's also your secret weapon in ensuring a balanced workload for each team member.

These updates are all about making your work life more manageable and less stressful. And best of all, they will be available to all customers on Business Plan and above. They're currently in preview for members of our Early Adopter Program (EAP), and we can't wait to roll them out to everyone.
 

AI enhancements: Smart just got smarter

Ever wished you had a magic wand to make your work easier? We’ve got you covered. For the past year, our wizards (a.k.a. our amazing Smartsheet developers) have been weaving AI magic into Smartsheet, so you can do more, faster, and still keep your data safe and sound.

The first AI capabilities we are making generally available will unlock the power of formulas. Smartsheet has long offered robust formulas and functions that allow you to analyze data, calculate KPIs, and organize information, but learning the syntax to write error-free formulas is notoriously tricky. As of this quarter, any licensed Enterprise user can simply describe their ideas, and AI will write the formula for you — including complete column references — directly in your sheet.

But why stop at traditional formulas? With AI text and summaries, you can use your sheet data to write ad copy, extract specific pieces of information from sheet data, analyze sentiment, translate text, summarize a task, and more.

And that’s not all... Last quarter we also released AI tools to our Early Adopters that provide conversational help to users, and analyze sheet data to produce charts and metrics instantly. In April 2024, we will begin releasing these tools to all eligible users on a rolling basis. Be sure to subscribe to Release Notes to be notified when each is available!
 

New views: Just got fresh ways to visualize and manage work

We’ve been reimagining our views from the ground up — infusing each one with essential collaboration, scale, and accessibility optimizations right from the start. We are working to fundamentally re-architect how you interact with Smartsheet so that your solution creation, collaboration, and project management will be faster, easier, and more engaging. As we roll out these new experiences you’ll immediately benefit from a host of new features.

Here are just some examples of this. In the near future, you’ll be able to forget about hitting the save button thanks to auto-save. Plus, with functionality that lays the groundwork for real-time collaboration, you’ll be able to work in a sheet simultaneously with your colleagues and stay effortlessly synced with the latest, most up-to-date version of your work. Performance and scale optimizations will make sure your sheet loads quickly no matter the size — and that your solution can scale. And each new view will feature a new modern interface. With accessibility best practices integrated from the beginning, Smartsheet is geared to genuinely support a better work experience for all of our customers.

To start, you’ll have a fresh way to visualize and manage date-based work with timeline view. It’s been available to our EAP members since September 2023 and will be launched to all users on Business Plan and above by the end of May 2024.

Next, we’ll launch board view (new card view) — a favorite among project managers, creatives, and agile teams because it enables them to collaborate and categorize tasks in real-time. Organized into vertical lanes, tasks can be prioritized and reassigned with a simple drag and drop. Board view features several additional exciting enhancements above and beyond what's available in classic card view. These include: larger images in your cards, the ability to quickly create one or many cards in a lane, and a new right panel detail view that makes it easier to quickly view and edit details on cards while still keeping other cards in view. This functionality has been available to our EAP members since December 2023. By the end of September 2024, all licensed and unlicensed users on all plans will be eligible to use board view.

Later this year, you can look forward to the EAP launch of table view (the new grid view) and more.
 

External collaboration: Just got more secure

Something that folks love about Smartsheet is how easy it makes it to work with customers and partners outside of your company. To make external collaboration even better and safer, we're upping our security game with two powerful new features. Customers can now enable two new policies to 'Require Corporate Account' and 'Require MFA (multi-factor authentication)' — which will ensure that external parties accessing your data are doing so with an active company account and leveraging multi-factor authentication.

Whether you're working with outside partners or vendors, these enhancements mean you can collaborate with confidence. Your data stays secure, no matter who comes or goes on the other side. It's our way of committing to top-notch security, without putting a damper on your collaborative spirit. Stay safe and collaborate smartly!

Speaking of security, we actually have so many updates for the system admins that we couldn’t fit them all here. If you’re a system admin or are just curious about how we’re delivering enterprise-grade security, governance, auditing, reporting, and admin capabilities, check out this blog written by our Senior Vice President of Engineering.

More great things coming by April 2024

Guess what? We've got even more amazing stuff heading your way:

• Changes are coming to the creation experience — soon it will be easier and quicker to create solutions, which will be automatically saved in your workspace. (Coming to EAP) 
• Forms will (finally) show up in Global Search results, making it easy to find forms by name. 
• We’ll be rolling out some changes to the homepage to make it even easier to find Workspaces and Workapps — no more looking through Browse to find what you need. (Coming to EAP)

Stay up to date on the Smartsheet Platform product vision including the latest innovation and progress to our scale and security commitments here.  

Catch you next quarter with more Smartsheet magic! 🚀